Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in the Second World War. Virginia Nicholson
Virginia Nicholson
Language: English
Pages: 394
ISBN: 2:00177120
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This collection of essays brings together the latest historical research on cultural production and reception during the Second World War. Its starting point is how this war was presented to, and understood by, contemporaries and how they differentiated it from earlier conflicts. Although this was particularly noticeable in the construction of ideas of inclusiveness and commonality where "the people" pulled together to secure victory and a socially equitable peace, the essays also seek to explore the diversity of institutional and personal experiences. Essays look at major institutions and industries such as the recently formed BBC, the culturally diverse and rapidly expanding commercial press, and the British film industry. The collection explores the role of the individual agent, with studies on established writers and composers, and how each related to the collective rationales of wartime.
Goering: The Rise and Fall of the Notorious Nazi Leader
The Doolittle Raid 1942: America's first strike back at Japan
panorama over the Le Havre estuary. Here in June 1940 she and Robert had watched the invading Germans dropping bombs on the port, the day before their flight to England. What bitter, poignant memories were revived by the sight of this orchard, where [the] cows moved gracefully in the long grass, and where the hedges were filled with ripening hazel-nuts. The red autumn sun was breaking through the haze, and all was peace and content. So much had passed, so little had changed. But now there was
persisted in seeking to revive their relationship. Gradually, compassion for his plight, and the rekindled flame of their old love displaced Monica’s initial shock and disbelief. And she soon found that those emotions shackled her to him as securely as if they had never been apart. Becoming wife to a man whose health and mental wellbeing had been eroded by war was not how Monica had once envisaged her future, but their past passion now exerted an inescapable pull. Did she feel a pang at the loss
58. An old woman shovelling debris in the Russian Zone of Berlin. (Getty Images) 59. Vicar’s wife and activist Irene Lovelock, flanked by two other leaders of the British Housewives’ League. (Sport and General Press Agency) 60. The harvest of peace, July 1948: the inauguration of the National Health Service. (Topham) 61. Happy ever after? Helen Vlasto’s wedding day, 28 November 1946. (From Change into Uniform) 62. 31 July 1948. Peter and Phyllis Willmott, at the start of their forty-two-year
nothing starry or distinguished in the war. When it was declared in 1939 she was ordinary, frightened and unsuspecting. But six years of conflict reordered that world; along with an entire generation, she awoke to her own post-war potential. In all these respects she was entirely typical of the many millions for whose sake I have borrowed my title. (Millions Like Us was a propaganda movie made by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat in 1943, to persuade women to join the war effort.) If I could have
something or somebody. ‘But my own sense of purpose was just beginning to develop.’ Mary Cornish shares a flat in Baker Street, London, with a female friend. She is thirty-nine. Both are musicians. Miss Cornish is the elder of two sisters, and Eileen, the younger, has always looked up to her for guidance and leadership. She has also had the fortune, unlike Eileen, to escape the parental home; in the 1920s she studied the piano in Vienna and has since travelled alone. A forthright and fearless
